


Change How I Feel About You

by Robertdoc



Category: Ted Lasso (TV)
Genre: Female Friendship, Friendship, Missing Scene, Other, episode 1x09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:00:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26981800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Robertdoc/pseuds/Robertdoc
Summary: A missing moment from episode 1x09 of Ted Lasso: one where after Rebecca confesses to and is forgiven by Ted, and before she reconciles with Higgins, she shares the news of her confession to Ted - and the news of what made her finally confess - to the woman [and hopefully soon to be once again her friend] who insisted she confess in the first place.A Rebecca/Keeley friendship and reconciliation story
Relationships: Rebecca Welton & Keeley Jones
Comments: 1
Kudos: 32





	Change How I Feel About You

**Author's Note:**

> One of the very first Ted Lasso fics [around here anyway] is certainly the first story centered on its female leads, their unlikely bond and imagining how it might have healed after Rebecca finally came clean to Ted - given the somewhat surprising fact the show itself didn't have room for such a scene.
> 
> Not written to be shippy although these two do occasionally leave room for it, somewhat like they're the successors to Eleanor and Tahani, much like Ted Lasso is a kind of successor to The Good Place - Keeley being an Eleanor like ball of energy and sass [if perhaps not as morally flexible] with hints of bi tendencies that include occasionally ogling her tall, fit, rich, very well connected British best female friend who isn't always considerate of others, has lived under someone else's shadow for years, and who was scarred by her former family until she found herself again [or at least is on her way to] thanks to actual unconditional love from a chosen misfit family....

Rebecca Welton had just endured the most painful – and then the most freeing and cathartic – sequence of events in her entire life. Even by the standard of this last year. Which said so many things – most of them bloody awful, yet a few of them strangely not so much.

So there was really no need to put herself through another painful thing right now. Not today. Maybe tomorrow, or the next day, or some other day after that on the slim chance it was really needed by then.

Not that it would be painful, per se. A little too much to handle just moments after…that moment in Ted’s office, perhaps.

And that other moment beforehand in her own.

Not that this would require anything close to that kind of confession. She already confessed to Ted, and this would just involve telling someone else that she confessed. By definition, that couldn’t possibly be harder.

Leaving aside the extenuating circumstances. Like how different things might have been if she gave herself the chance to do this an hour ago. Or a day ago. A week. Several months, really.

All the things that might have been changed if this had happened much earlier.

_“It would change how I feel about you!”_

Oh, and then there was that too. The statement that should have led to Rebecca confessing just 10 minutes earlier than she did, yet she didn’t – and then look what happened.

A statement, and a sentiment, that wouldn’t have meant anything to her mere months ago, and now…

Rebecca Welton had been through the most painful, and then the most healing sequence of her life mere minutes ago. Another emotional meeting with someone who…she never imagined could have meant anything to her months ago…was surely too much right now. Maybe tomorrow, or some other day when this might not even have to be her problem anymore by then.

It wasn’t the worst excuse she’d made not to come clean these last few months. Maybe it was just the current context that made it look like the most inexcusable. Maybe.

And maybe there was no other deeper reason that during all this, she’d already walked on autopilot yet again towards the office of someone she wronged. Granted, she was in a far less devastated mood this time, and the office she was at the door of was actually the press room.

And granted, she had far better news to deliver this time. News the person in that ‘office’ was actually hoping to hear. Wanted to hear for days.

Maybe too many days for it to make a difference now. Too many days for it to change anything, no matter what she claimed.

No, she wouldn’t lie like that. Unlike Rebecca, she didn’t have that skillset. But if she found it now…wouldn’t that be the most fitting way for the universe to go right back to buggering her? To balance out the token gift it gave her in Ted’s office with something far less forgiving in this one?

How could she really expect – really hope – her fortunes could change that much by now?

_“It would change how I feel about you!”_

That didn’t answer Rebecca’s question. It did make her open the door to the press room and make the only person inside of it notice her. It did make her briefly light up to see Rebecca, before she remembered she was still pissed at her and changed her usually expressive eyes to something more…unnaturally emotionless accordingly.

So that was as good an answer as any.

“What can I do for you, boss?” Keeley Jones tempered the bubbly out of her voice, sealing Rebecca’s answer.

“I told Ted. I told him everything.”

Rebecca brushed aside the nagging asterisk that she still hadn’t told Keeley everything to go with it. As far as she still knew, setting her and Ted up with damning photographs was the only thing Rebecca ever did to try and ruin Ted and the team.

On that score, Rebecca knew for sure it was too much, too soon to tackle that loose end today. Merely telling Keeley she came clean about the one scheme she figured out would have to be enough. If it really was.

Telling someone about every scheme couldn’t possibly work twice in one day. Maybe for someone else, but not for Rebecca. Even if it shouldn’t have worked once and already did anyway.

“And he actually forgave me…” that made Rebecca remember with fresh wonder in her head. And out loud as well, as she realized about a second after she did it.

“Well, of course he did,” Rebecca registered Keeley’s response right away. But before she could think that Keeley meant it as a compliment about Rebecca and how she was worth forgiving, Keeley continued.

“He’s Ted Lasso, what else did you think he was gonna do?”

Keeley probably didn’t mean to imply Ted was too good and forgiving to not even forgive a lying bitch. Probably. She probably didn’t mean to make it sound like Rebecca was even more of a foul slag for forgetting that, doubling down and bringing about more unnecessary misery first anyway. Probably.

“There, you see what happens when you take my advice? Or blackmail, or whatever history will judge it as?”

Keeley didn’t mean to make that sound as guilt-inducing as it did because she didn’t know the full story. Probably. Well, she certainly didn’t know a big part of today’s story. No one did, except for Rebecca. Maybe if she was just a little faster, then…

“Well, it certainly would have gone a lot better today if I had,” Rebecca realized she admitted a second too late. She didn’t have that excuse for letting the next statement slip, though.

“Like most everything else, albeit fewer things than I’d like, full credit has to go to Rupert.”

There was really no need to bring that up. Not in front of another person who didn’t look that much closer to forgiving her anyway, even after her original news. Not after this last hour. Not after this last lifetime, really.

But like most every day since she actually got to know Keeley, Rebecca felt compelled to admit more than she ever planned to tell her going in. Maybe she knew deep down this was likely the last chance she’d get to do it.

Maybe since this was the only thing she didn’t just admit to Ted, it was bound to come out to someone. For at least the next few minutes, this was the only other someone still remotely near Rebecca’s corner right now. Geographically, if not in every other way.

Maybe she hadn’t let it all out in Ted’s office after all. That was more likely, since every time Rebecca thought there wasn’t anything left of her to give, someone or something reminded her she could always lose more.

_Should_ always lose more.

It took remembering that to get her off her ass and do what a much more decent person would have done much earlier. Maybe it was time a much more decent person than Rebecca fully understood that.

“I tried to tell him after we talked, but I couldn’t do it. That gave Rupert just enough time to slip in my office and do me the _favor_ of letting me know first. So now I suppose you know second that ‘new Rebecca’ is…having his child.”

Rebecca sat herself in the front row out of necessity at that point. Keeley was still standing, but she seemed to be wobbling a tick.

“Him? That smokeshow’s having _his_ kid?” Keeley exclaimed, saving all the disgust in her voice for the end of the question rather than the beginning. Afterwards, all the other implications of that news seemed to hit Keeley right in the gut.

Enough to make her go over and sit down right next to Rebecca – as if she was her friend again.

Enough to make Rebecca keep talking – either because of that, or because she felt like sabotaging herself, she couldn’t answer. Or let herself admit her answer.

“He admitted that, before he got 90 percent through admitting he just never wanted kids with me. And that’s what got me marching down to Ted’s office because…”

This finally had to be too much for one day. It was far too much to feel the first time, let alone feel a second time while recapping for a first time to another person. A person who surely didn’t want to hear her sob stories after what she did to her.

Maybe this would eliminate all doubt that Keeley made the right call to back away from her. Maybe that was worth going through all this again. There would certainly be dozens of worse reasons Rebecca would relive all this later on.

“…because I was convinced he was right.”

There it was. At least the least damning part of it.

“I mean, of course, right?! Everything I did, everyone I pushed away to get into his ivory tower…then everything I did after I got out….everyone I hurt like you and Ted, everyone I tried to hurt other than you and Ted…I mean, _of course_ he’d say 90 percent of that to me! After everything I actually did for years, everything I actually did this last year and everything I almost did to…”

Again, there was probably still no need to admit that much to Keeley yet. Especially when there were lots of other things to damn her on their own.

“So no, I didn’t confess to Ted because you convinced me to. Or out of the goodness of my own heart. I think…I think I just wanted it to be _over._ I think I was just done trying to tell myself I could feel better…that I should feel better…”

“I think…I just wanted someone else other than Rupert…other than me….to know everything about me and then want nothing to do with me anymore too. I wanted him to finally see me and realize he should find happiness as far away from me as possible too.”

“I finally only wanted to tell the truth because I wanted him to hate me for it….and of course I couldn’t even get that right! Like you said, it’s Ted Lasso, what else should I have expected, right?!”

Rebecca hoped her voice sounded light enough at the end for everyone’s sake in this room. But after showing Keeley exactly how little difference her pleas and threats made in the end – and especially after showing her the full mess she’d been unfortunate enough to befriend without all the facts – her tone at the very end probably wouldn’t matter either way.

All she could do was at least face Keeley’s certain disappointment head on, while she still let her. So Rebecca cleared her eyes out and let herself look at the woman she had likely vented to for the last time.

There was no disappointment in her eyes, though. No disgust, no regret at being near her. Instead, there was something in Keeley’s eyes Rebecca had never seen before. Nothing.

That shouldn’t have been possible. It certainly wasn’t natural to see a complete lack of emotion on that face and in those eyes. Yet oddly enough, Rebecca could still see it was taking a strain on her not to show anything.

She couldn’t speak to the Keeley from before several months ago. The Keeley she knew since then wore every emotion and feeling on her sleeve, whether happy, sad or pissed. Or almost hauntingly heartbroken – like right after her initial ultimatum for Rebecca to tell Ted the truth.

None of that resembled the Keeley she was looking at now. And that was before she spoke and sounded nothing like the Keeley she knew before. Flat, controlled and with an undercurrent of something else….

“You got all that in your head because _he_ didn’t….”

Keeley stayed still in her chair. Then she started to breathe a little heavier. Then her hands started to clench. Then she went onto her feet. Then Rebecca realized what that undercurrent was.

An undercurrent of something she’d never seen or heard from Keeley before. But something she saw almost every time she’d ever watched Keeley’s current boyfriend.

Rage.

In fact, by the time Keeley nearly marched out of the room and then came right back, Rebecca was convinced even Roy Kent had nothing on Keeley right now.

By the time Keeley finished pacing next to the press podium – aka her desk – Rebecca was starting to realize she wasn’t the target of that rage.

And by the time Keeley started trying to push that far too big podium – if not outright trying to flip it – Rebecca began to let herself accept the truth.

Keeley wasn’t fucking furious at her. She was furious for her.

And by the time Keeley gave up trying to flip the table, then kicked it and screamed “Fucking wanker!!” Rebecca realized she wasn’t talking to the podium.

Then she realized she at least had to try and calm her down before she went off to shit in one of Rupert’s closets. For appearance and deniability’s sake, if nothing else – so Rebecca told herself for a half-second before she gave up all pretenses.

Before she tried to give Keeley one more out. Just to be fair. So Rebecca told herself.

“Keeley, that’s not necessary! You don’t have to be that upset for me! I didn’t tell you any of that just to make you forgive me! Just because Ted did doesn’t mean you should force yourself to! It took this much for me to see that what Rupert did isn’t an excuse for my actions! So you still have every right to be pissed at me for them, if that’s still what you want!”

Rebecca was about to say it was a little too much to expect to be let off the hook twice. Or she would have, if she didn’t then receive what she didn’t expect to get again.

A big, powerful, overwhelming Keeley Jones hug.

If it wasn’t as emotional and all consuming as the hug Rebecca gave Ted not too long ago, it wasn’t for lack of trying. If it didn’t make Rebecca cry her eyes out, it was only because she was apparently all cried out at Ted’s office after all.

She must have been, if her eyes were still dry after she heard Keeley repeat into her ear – or maybe it was her neck – “You _fucking_ wanker…”

Only unlike a few seconds ago, she didn’t say that phrase with anything resembling hate. If anything, that phrase was now laced with relief, fondness, exasperation and yet so much more warmth and love than a phrase like “fucking wanker” should have been capable of conveying.

Like many things – like Rebecca herself as well – it never accounted for Keeley Jones.

Just like that, all of Keeley’s football level anger was melted away by the time Rebecca was strong enough to hold her back. Before long, she really started to feel like the old Keeley in her arms again – at least the old Keeley as Rebecca knew her whenever she pulled her into her hugs.

Except that usually when they ended, Keeley was right back to talking and bouncing around in no time. This time when she let go of Rebecca, she didn’t seem to know what to do with herself. She didn’t seem to know how to act around her, now that she didn’t seem to be angry at her or for her anymore but still didn’t seem to be 100 percent at ease either.

Perhaps she realized she’d gotten ahead of herself in forgiving Rebecca after all. Or maybe…

Maybe actually asking Keeley what she thought, instead of assuming the worst first, would speed this along a lot easier. It was worth a try at this point.

“Keeley…”

“Do you know what really pissed me off about all this? You tried to make the whole country think me and Ted were two grab-assing tossers. But you know what it was after that?”

“Well…you can probably explain it better than me.”

“Oh, I will! It’s that you made me think…”

Now Keeley seemed to be at a loss for words, which merely added to the pile of her unusual firsts in front of Rebecca. Yet Rebecca knew this wouldn’t last for long – she just didn’t know where Keeley would go with this when she reclaimed her gift of gab.

Then she reclaimed it.

“Before I looked at that photo card, everything was great. I was just starting something with an actual good bloke for once, who’s actually slightly mental in the good way. And if that wasn’t enough, at the same time I’d actually made a brilliant, badass, fit as fuck and fun as hell new friend who made me feel…more special than usual because she liked me too. Who gave me a job because she thought I was smart, not because I posed with lions or pandas or crossed my legs in summer at just the right angle. And who helped me see I can and should want something deeper in my personal life too, and not just in certain angles there too!”

Rebecca tried to brush past that last part, although brushing through the more ribald parts of a Keeley ramble felt like old times – albeit just a few days old – again. 

“Having all that at once seemed too good and too rare to be true! Then I go and find out it is. I mean, if it had to be not true somewhere, better it’s from you than Roy! Bet I’ve already jinxed that enough too, though…”

“Keeley…”

“The point is, it still hurt like hell! I thought I had a real friend who really liked and valued every part of me for once! Someone I wanted to be real friends with, instead of tossing aside for whatever fucked up excuse my dumb as fuck piece of fuck fucking scumbag prick fuck brain fucked up!”

“Keeley….” Rebecca tried to contain a fairly inappropriate smile, until it was promptly wiped off.

“Then it turns out it makes more sense you kept an eye on me so I wouldn’t figure out you set me and Ted up. Or you were keeping me close to figure a better way to do it later. Or…or you did regret it, and you only wanted me around to let yourself off the hook about it. I guess if that’s it, it’s not so bad compared to all that…”

“Keeley…”

Keeley put on a smile that was nowhere near any of the ones she’d brightened up offices, jets, hotel rooms and karaoke rooms with. Rebecca already got the message before this final straw, but getting hit over the head with it was still a necessary evil. Certainly a lesser evil than other ones.

Rebecca didn’t want to be arrogant or stuck up enough to assume Keeley had a shallow and superficial lifestyle and social circle before coming here. She certainly had bad boyfriends before she met one here, but none of them were inexplicably loved billionaire frauds who inspired insane revenge plots, so Keeley couldn’t cry foul to that extent.

Yet as different as her circumstances were, as far less racked with responsibilities and baggage as Keeley was, and as comparatively more well put together as Keeley was…everything else was so familiar to Rebecca.

So much so that it really shouldn’t have taken all this to see it, if she really was the friend Keeley thought she was before.

That friend would have instantly recognized a woman who was seen by much of the country as one shallow, silly, foolish thing that was the furthest thing from reality. She would have recognized a woman who had what most of her peers would consider an ideal life, yet was only missing someone decent to share it with.

She would have recognized someone who had so much more to share, yet either by choice or by circumstance, wasn’t surrounded by people who took the time to notice it, appreciate it or help put it out there – not until a few months ago.

Someone who put up a front that convinced most of the country, but who only let a select few see what it covered up. Someone who somehow let the most unlikely people see it before they even realized it, with the most unlikely results…yet ones they had given up on finding a long time ago.

Until they let those people in and let them show them, in their weird and wacky and aggravating and incredibly wonderful way, what they were really missing and really wanted all this time.

And yet in return for all that, Rebecca had let such a person believe none of it was real. Was still letting her believe it every second she didn’t correct her.

Not that Rebecca had any real talent with such correcting. Not for about six years, at the bare minimum.

Yet if any scenario required Rebecca to find her inner Ted Lasso, this would have to do.

“You’re right,” she started before she really knew what she was building towards. “I didn’t become friends with you for any noble reason. In fact, I was downright selfish.”

“I saw the first person ever in these parts who thought it was unfair I was held to a far worse standard than Rupert, and I selfishly wanted to keep her around. I saw the first person in a long time who wanted to be my friend…just because she wanted to be my friend, and I selfishly let her try. I saw someone who actually wanted to be friends with…the Rebecca I let myself turn into, even before they helped dig the old Rebecca out again…and I selfishly wanted to let her keep thinking they had the right idea.”

“And that was before she turned out to be the biggest breath of fresh air in my life this side of Ted Lasso. Go figure!”

Keeley now put on a smile that was much closer to normal and blinding than before, but still not quite enough. That would surely require taking a familiar and long overdue step.

“But as I told you before, accountability matters. So I’m going to take that step now, which I should have taken earlier today with you. Or in the office when you showed me the photo. Or any other day before that, really.”

Rebecca steeled herself one more time today to push through, take responsibility and leave herself at the mercy of someone far more equipped for mercy – deserving or not – than she would ever be. Only this time she was slightly more confident she would get it, and slightly more confident she could ask for it without breaking down.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t any less desperate inside for just one more chance. She only hoped it came across the right way, as she said the words she should have said long before now.

“Keeley, I am so sorry for what I put you through, before I was lucky enough to become your friend. And I am equally sorry I let you think for a _second_ that anything in that friendship wasn’t real.”

For the second time today, Rebecca Welton apologized to one of the finest people left in what was left of her life. Yet this time as she waited for a response, she was slightly more confident it would be accepted. If only slightly.

“You really mean it…” Keeley’s response was half a question, half a statement. It was also half a statement of amazement, and half one of relief.

It didn’t pack the immediate punch and surprise of an “I forgive you” But at least it didn’t take as long for Rebecca to understand and accept she really had been forgiven.

Instead of giving a hug after that acceptance, Rebecca only had enough left in her to nod. Yet of all things, that was enough to bring the old Keeley smile completely back for good.

“Thank you,” she said in a quieter tone with that smile than usual. “I guess I really needed to hear that.”

“There’s a lot of that going around in this place today,” Rebecca admitted, not intending to draw a laugh out of Keeley but glad that she did. It gave her enough cover to double check and ask, “So…we’re okay, then?”

“Oh, yeah. We’re all good,” Keeley lightly reassured, before taking an even lighter and more careful walk towards Rebecca.

“Are you gonna be too?”

Rebecca now knew for sure that everything was back to normal for them. Normal in this case being that Keeley was back to surprising her with sudden care, concern and an eagerness to be right there for her if needed, before Rebecca even realized or accepted that she needed it.

In spite of their rift having healed mere moments ago, Rebecca knew Keeley was already ready to drop everything in a moment for her again, if she still needed help processing this…trying day. On most any other day far less trying than this, she would have taken that offer.

Yet on this day, after all the help she’d already gotten…after finally accepting for the first time in years that such help wouldn’t be taken away from her, no matter what she did to it before she realized what she had…maybe she had all she needed already.

“Maybe,” she answered out loud. “That’s more than I’ve been able to say in a really long time.”

“Well, in that case…” Keeley started before she headed back to her ‘office’ “I guess we both have work to catch up on. I don’t know about you, but now that I’m not ignoring my boss anymore, mine should be a lot easier to get done.”

“I’m sure she’ll love to hear that when I tell her,” Rebecca tried her hand at a joke as she started to head for the exit. Yet that didn’t seem like quite the right exit for this conversation.

“It’ll be good for you to get out of the office and see her when you’re done. You really liven up the place!” Rebecca let her volume get away from her as she awkwardly finished a call back only she would understand.

Yet as usual, Rebecca’s awkwardness, inexperience with intentional humor, and remaining rustiness at being a genuine friend didn’t seem to matter one bit to Keeley. Instead, she took her aback one more time, with the kind of genuine touch Rebecca swore she would match without needing a friendship/soul threatening crisis to do it one day.

“Not nearly as much as you do. Boss,” Keeley said the last word far more fondly than she did at the very beginning of the meeting.

Even after Rebecca officially ended the meeting by leaving the room, she didn’t close the door all the way. She left it open just a tick to see Keeley when she thought she was alone again, closing it completely only after she saw her breathe a big sigh of relief.

A sigh of relief over having her friend back. The same kind of sigh Rebecca felt deep in her somehow still stable gut too.

A gut that told her if Keeley’s feelings about her had been restored for the better – whether or not they’d really changed for the worst deep deep down beforehand – Rebecca could never let them change back again.

Maybe she wasn’t better enough yet to confidently promise that to herself. But she was better enough to know she wouldn’t – couldn’t – risk it on purpose ever again. Not with her. Or Ted. Or even the club. Or…

Once that and the sight of Higgins’s chewed up pen came back to her in her office, Rebecca knew she forgot something.

Ah well. Third and final stop on her apology/reconciliation tour for the day it was, then.


End file.
